Mother
by Sable a.k.a. Psychobitchua
Summary: Mystique and all her children


CHAPTER1.  
  
Eric's eyes are closed, and he slowly nods his head from side to side, listening to his special melody, sounding inside his brain just for him. The melody of superiority and humiliation. But he should know, it doesn't work the way it should for me. I'm too long by his side to care. I don't feel uncomfortable, I don't want to run to the nearest corner and sit there, crying from fear and shame. He opens his eyes and looks a bit disappointed, seeing me right in my spot on the comfortable chair in the front of him.  
  
I feel pretty good, I must say. But something is telling me he will do everything to make my smile fade. Here it comes: the lyrics of the song, composed by Eric Leshnerr:  
  
"Your daughter", he says.  
  
Does he really think he will surprise me with that? I'm not a cuckoo, that throws her children around without an intention to find them later. I never cared much about my freaked children, however, I kept an eye on each of them. It may surprise and shock him deeply, but I even know the exact quantity of my offsprings: four. Four if not to take into account those, who died in early childhood. I don't know their names (Graydon was the one, who I kept and didn't dump right away), locations and fates. It's enough for me to know they exist (existed) in this world.  
  
"She died yesterday evening."  
  
"Which one?" I calmly ask.  
  
It difficult to describe the emotions inside me. I feel the need to cross off another person from the list, like I crossed off Graydon once. He was a bastard, so I never shed a tear. But inside my heart became a bit heavier, although I wasn't strong enough to recognize, that his death made me weaker. Now... Now I feel a bit more weaker and distracted (don't tell anybody -- you'll destroy my reputation of the selfish bitch, which was created by evil deeds by years, and I will most definitely kill you for that).  
  
Eric ignores my question. He has to sing his song verse by verse without my intervention.  
  
"Or should I say, she killed herself? I'm not a psychologist, but I guess it wasn't about cry for help. It was about death. The cut on her left wrist was exact and deep enough, not leaving any chance to survive. Poor girl was very unstable..."  
  
"Which one?" I say louder and there are some unknown emotions in my voice, which means, that I lost this game to Magneto.  
  
He slowly comes back to reality, eyes still closed, but I can feel our al- metal furniture and walls start to tremble slightly. Now the animal is fully awake.  
  
"The one you left on the stairs of the small church in Manhattan 22 years ago. The one you never saw clearly. The one you never held. The one you never named..."  
  
"That's enough, Eric".  
  
"On contrary, I just started. Aren't you interested? Nuns gave her a wonderful aristocratic name: Vanessa, raised her, fed and dressed... They loved her although she was... not normal looking. But nuns don't know the word "mutants". Can you imagine, all her life she was told she has a rare skin illness, which didn't really explained its blue color and never helped much. She looked alike you pretty much... and her abilities were almost the same. She could be quite useful here, by the way..."  
  
I start to feel the dangerous heat inside. There are times in our coexistence, when I wonder, how quick my rubber muscles can be, if I can grab him by the throat before he would smash me with the metal table.  
  
"Don't get so stressed, Raven", Eric smiles with the wide smile of an idiot, who for the first time in his life saw a pencil with the rubber on its top. "You didn't hear the most interesting part..."  
  
The chair under me starts vibrating. Just a remainder, who is the boss here.  
  
"It always surprise me, how easy you, a woman, get rid of all factors, that can stop you or just slow down a little. And your children..."  
  
"Speaking of children..." I interrupt so sharply, that he's probably surprised a bit and I'm glad--after all these years together I can surprise him with something.  
  
But anyway, he was the one, who stuck the knife in my back. It's my turn to bite now.  
  
"... how's Wanda doing?"  
  
"Don't..." he warns, and my chair lifts up from the metal floor on the, then falls back not too gently.  
  
But I pushed the right button, and Magneto, who likes to consider himself as God sometimes, is distracted enough to not destroy me right away. He will never put his hands on me, I guess, because I'm too useful, too devoted and too knowing. In his early years, when we only met, he used to be more emotional and talkative, and I was the one, who saw his soul, now closed to the world, turned inside out. Of course now he regrets of all the secrets he shared with me, but what's done is done.  
  
If I was bad as a parent, I don't even know, how to classify Eric at this point. He had a nice beautiful little girl, whom he, an orphan from Warsaw's getto, loved more than his life, but less, than world domination. Wanda was his little goddess until he found out she may be much stronger, than he was.  
  
Wanda must be one of the most powerful mutants in the world today, if her power continued to develop with her getting older. Plus, her power is unusual even for the mutant world. It is impossible to control and describe, understand it. Wanda just... ruins everything, when biological processes in her organism accelerate, affected by adrenaline: physical objects and natural forces like wind, rain, magnetic fields, by the way -- it all go crazy with her.  
  
She was 8, when our perfect father locked her in a nice house with green walls and kind people in white. Maybe he was feeling this weird something, that I felt each time loosing my children, standing there under pouring rain and watching her crying, stretching her arms to him, begging, calling... I bet, no matter how far he had gone with his evil plans, these desperate cries of a small and scared child, doomed to loneliness and short life in grey haze of medicines, still sound in his nightmares.  
  
"You know, I always wanted to visit her, buy candies and stuff..."  
  
"Raven, stop right here..."  
  
"... and REMIND her something. These hospitals, surrounded by beautiful gardens, are closed to the normal people. She probably doesn't even remember you, but I always can tell her a nice story of her father and her abilities. And if, Eric, if she founds out that it was you, Eric Leshnerr, who ruined all her life, I don't know. She can go really crazy and then I don't envy you..."  
  
After all, I made that stupid melody inside his head shut up. His pale blue eyes are studying my yellow ones, and then he says:  
  
"You can go now."  
  
But we both know, who is the victor in the fight. I head to the door, then stop to make a "control shoot" in the head:  
  
"Left children are simpler. Somebody can always find them. But betrayed children..."  
  
"I said go!"  
  
Ladies and gentleman, here is your winner, professional widow, Ms. Raven Darkholme!  
  
CHAPTER2.  
  
The most popular question, that people like to ask God, friends, reflection in the mirror, whatever: "Who am I?" and then it comes almost naturally: "Why am I here?". There is no person on Earth, who had never asked these questions at least for the one time. Some of them even found an answer... Or should I say, they though they found it. Well, there were times, when a little girl, named Raven Darkholme began her every morning with questions like that.  
  
You see, mutation is a difficult phenomenon and it's damn hard to live in the cruel world with the problem you can never explain. I'm not trying to justify myself or something--my pride won't allow me that even if I wanted to. And, looking back, I'm not asking for forgiveness, because I had already forgave myself many years ago. But there is such a thing called "understanding".  
  
My children can understand me, I guess. Not as a mother: as one joke of nature another.  
  
There were times when I was ashamed of myself. I was like a sponge, absorbing every bad word, every wrong look... And I was scared. The fear motivated me during my first independent years of life far away from home. Changing masks every day, scared of being caught by original, hating the reflection in the mirror.  
  
I lived lives of my "masks", forgetting about my own. I chose one young pretty black woman, who was living in deep depression, and was following her all day long to take all her habits and manners. You see, I can visually become whoever, and looking at me, you will never even think, that something is wrong, that I am fake. But the personality consists of not only appearance, environment. This is the whole package of memories and other stuff. Every person is special. I can be Steven Tyler and smile to you with his lips, but it never be his smile, I can sing to you "Hole in my soul" with his voice, but never the way he does it. So before I take another mask, I need some time to watch the original. And I watched as she left her office during the brake, went to the lady's room and cut her wrists with the blade she used to fix some mistakes in already printed documents. Nobody could understand or even notice her suffering... But it was a real present for me. I didn't kill then, I just buried her body and became her for year and a half.  
  
That's how Kurt was born. I was already thinking about keeping my mask forever, because, I guess, his father was my first love. But picture that: I'm at home, comfortable with my new life, forgetting about my freaked past... It is a good thing I was alone, really, because I saw him coming to this world, a little ugly devil with hoarse cries... Children can't cry like this. I throw him away, literally, when he started to reach me with his disgusting hand with three fingers. I screamed and cried, already knowing, that another period in my life was over.  
  
I was very young, a young terrified girl, who just started t think she was free from damnation, when it came back... Only ten years later, when I met Eric, I found out, that there existed even more scary creatures, than my first child. Take Toad as example. Stop, I'm trying to justify my actions again, damn it. When I found ability to think, I covered IT with some duvet, and left my home... not really mine... to run. I honestly don't know, where did I leave him -- I wasn't speaking rationally. But then Margali found him and raised somewhere as her own son.  
  
Three years later I tried again, but I got the same result. IT was female, though. Another life, another change, but on the street I was approached by redhead woman older than me, Margali again, who seemed to be more comfortable with her mutation. I know nothing about a woman, who became a mother to my two children, but I suspect she used telepathy to find me. She just took IT from me and said: "I guess, it would be better for both of you". I never saw her since, although I knew, she named IT Talia Joshephine.  
  
Graydon was born in Brotherhood, when I have already taken myself as I was, and I'm still proud of myself. No more fears, no more tears. Thinking about my long life now, I'm sure, that if he only was my first child, the world would never know about deadly assassin Mystique. I would stay Grace Wilson forever, and the mask become my real face. I sometimes use her name to introduce the clean version of myself... But times had changed, and the normal baby, absolutely normal healthy boy wasn't needed in our evil company. I guess, Margali didn't want to take him either... He grew up, he got angry, he was killed by his own father. End of story.  
  
I have just mentioned my "clean version". Let me tell you about it, too. With years going by, I feel the growing desire of being myself as long as it possible. But since my real appearance is a bit shocking, I used graphic programs on my computer to create her five years ago. She is me, actually, only with lovely silk pink skin, golden curly locks and blue eyes. Modern technologies can make real wonders. And in memory of the longest attempt to live normal life, I named her Grace Wilson.  
  
John doesn't like her. He says she's not really me. Little sick pervert... But who am I to judge our little pyrotechnic?  
  
So, little by little, we approached her, my last child, born 22 years ago. Eric was wrong: I touched her, I held her in my arms, feeling how much did we have in common. I spent five days playing the role of the mother, even breastfed her, but decided, that my path is chosen: I'm always alone. And she, Vanessa... I named her Candace, actually... She needed the better company, so I made decision and left her. Don't think, that decision was easy. It wasn't. I really wish I could say "End of story" as it was with Graydon, but something is telling me, that now it's a little bit early for that.  
  
We'll see, we'll see...  
  
CHAPTER 3.  
  
He was a pretty difficult personality, a real enigma for psychologists. His behavior was typical for mutant, though. He was in the middle of the third phase of such complicated process, as mutation. Mutation itself in the modern world, democratic, yet too painfully reacting to the unknown things.  
  
The first phase is discovery. Now picture the glossy magazine, one of those with beautiful female celebrity on the cover, tons of adds with the new perfume's and cream's samples and commercial on every second page, yet pretending to be social. Then picture one of the last pages with a short article about mutation itself and living, real mutants. And the last thing you have to picture, is a poll in the bottom. You know, how they like those stupid questions and even more stupid variants of answers, to get some statistic data for God knows who and God knows why. Here goes this question, the question, that in reality probably will never be asked, but... "What did you feel, when you had found out, that you were mutant?" About 5% would probably say, they felt happiness, the possibility to change the world due the special powers. Magneto would be among them. Another 10 % would confess, they were scared to death, and are scared now, because mutation feels like a decease or something. But all the rest would choose not to answer the question, not knowing the answer.  
  
When a young boy John Allerdyce was trying to light the father's cigarette in the kitchen, the lighter was probably broken or something. He threw it away, glaring angrily, and the next thing he knew, all kitchen was on fire. He panicked -- for Christ's sake, he was only 14, alone in a big house, and having no idea, that the flame is under his control completely. It expanded quickly with the raising of his heartbeat, and soon the all house was burned down. He was sitting on the bench, surrounded by paramedics, and whispered in despair: "Please, God, stop this". God didn't. He did. The fire tongues disappeared in the clouds of white steam, although firemen didn't started the operation yet.  
  
The second phase is accustoming. Mutation is a drug, your brain has to adjust to it. Like a wild animal, he was scared of fire... until he realized, who was the real boss here. It took all his courage to take the lighter and make a couple experiments to make sure, but it took him to the last, the third phase: the choice.  
  
It sounds pretty simple: take it or leave it. To wear a mask of a normal representative of the human race, being scared, that the truth can accidentally come out, yet being intrigued with the truth. Or take the fate of the mutant and run away from home, from people, who used to love you once, from all you have ever known.  
  
He made his choice, appearing at the Xavier's school, but he was damn surprised to find out, that even people like him, people with even more complicated lives, couldn't understand him. X-Men were white, Brotherhood was black. X-Men were good, Brotherhood was evil. The biggest problem in life of John Allerdyce was the fact, that he was born grey, the mix of black and white, too bad for Xavier, too good for Magneto. Each of the mutant leaders tried to make him cross the line, not wanting to understand, that he was just born different, born to stay in the middle. Mystique was adoring him for that, by the way. She was bad to the bone, but really treasured the bright sparks inside his cruel dark eyes.  
  
"Come here", he said, stretching his body atop her bed, not even bothering to kick his shoes off.  
  
Mystique closed the window. Sometimes the cold wind from the top of the mountain brought some good ideas and thoughts, but definitely not today. She looked at him and again felt the strange mix of emotions. She cared about him, because he was her lover, the first person the let enter inside her heart, but still she was so desperately needing to have a child, and he needed mother. Such a weird relationships, but maybe that's the way the perfect relationships between man and woman should look like.  
  
She crawled up the bed near him to rest her cheek on the pillow.  
  
"What's wrong with you?"  
  
"I was thinking", she replied. "Thinking itself is bad. Ever asked yourself, why do idiots always live long happy lives?"  
  
"Because they don't think at all."  
  
"Bingo."  
  
There were only a few men in all universe, who could tell they really had been on top of Raven Darkholme and stayed alive. John Allerdyce was one of them.  
  
"Look at me," she whispered hoarsely, "every time you do me, or speak to me, or just stand near -- always look at me".  
  
Their gazes -- his, the dark one, and her, shining yellow -- met for a moment, and his head fell on her shoulder, when his hips stopped. She let herself show her weakness for a moment, stroking his damp hair. He let himself to be weak for a moment, being held by the most dangerous woman in the universe.  
  
Weakness is not always really a weakness. You have to be strong to let yourself be weak.  
  
CHAPTER 4.  
  
"Well, well, well..." Eric smiled, making the chair appear right under his ass when he was about to sit. "Only look at this."  
  
I quickly chased away the remnants of sleep from my head to meet his cold eyes. This is his lair, and as a master he can open all the doors anytime he wants without asking. But this time he chose extremely wrong moment to show up.  
  
"What do you want?" I glared at him, instinctively bracing my hand over John in irresponsible attempt to protect him from the source of aggression right in front of us.  
  
He was sleeping, and it was the best thing he could do in situation like this.  
  
"You know, I care about you, Raven".  
  
He cares about my presence, because, being the old man, he obviously doesn't want to meet his death all alone. But I know for sure he doesn't give a damn about my feelings. I don't blame him. Really, there is exist the weird connection between two of us, created by long years of living side-by-side, but I can't see anything except this line, which had bounded us up together once, no feelings on background.  
  
"I care about your heart".  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes. I remember you were crying when Victor was gone, so... Don't get used to him..." he pointed loosely at John's direction.  
  
I started to get stressed and my hand on his side tightened the grip.  
  
"I can see you already are in a very close contact with him. It would be very painful to rip apart the bound like this..." with these words he was gone, leaving me stunned and frozen, yet warm from contact with John's body.  
  
Eric feels the strong potential inside Pyro, that's why he brought him here, actually, preparing the new member of the Brotherhood. But if somehow someday he'll feel, that boy becomes stronger, than his evil teacher, he will crush him without looking back. He was a bit more merciful to Wanda, since she was his daughter, but with John making a sacrifice is easier.  
  
I looked down to my sleeping lover/child and decided, that there is enough sacrifices for me. I watched them disappear to make Eric comfortable, to make myself comfortable, and only now I understood, that it wasn't really a big deal to loose them and stay strong and bitchy, alone. The real feat was to keep them alive, wherever they were and whoever they became.  
  
Maybe Eric will be shocked, but this time I won't let him hurt this boy. Maybe my life will be the price and maybe after another 20 years this sweet and passionate lover beside me will turn into monster just like Magneto, deciding one done day, that I am too old to be with him... But here goes my little surprise for mighty Magneto: I won't let him hurt John. I don't know, where did my stone heart go and why does something warm and definitely alive tremble inside my chest, but whatever it takes I will protect him.  
  
CHAPTER 5.  
  
She had enough cosmetics to hide her freaky skin. She had wigs, made from natural hair, very expensive, but really naturally looking, too. She had contact lenses to cover her empty eyes. But she never could do anything with her empty soul, where the dark demons of the past, present and future had found a shelter. They were moaning and whining, screaming and crying, and those blood-cooling sounds echoed inside her brain, making her do things she did.  
  
"Time to die, Mr. Lomonica", she smiled.  
  
Her lips, actually, smiled, but her face in general stayed motionless.  
  
"What are you saying?" the young man, looking good, but very pale, so pale, that his face was lost on the white pillow, asked, trying to smile back.  
  
Maybe it was some kind of a sick professional joke -- those doctors with hearts, covered with a crust, usually have a disgusting sense of humor. He didn't know, however, that Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle, never joked and never understood jokes.  
  
"Time to die", she repeated. "Oh, didn't they tell you?" she sat on his bed, crossing her legs.  
  
"Tell me what?"  
  
The peeping sound, which indicated the heartbeat of Mr. Lomonica, started to increase.  
  
"Oh," she shook her head. "Honesty is a big issue. Honesty in medicine is the most important and, unfortunately, rare thing. Your doctor and family didn't tell you about a month or so? Such a shame... You have a cancer, already nonresectable cancer, by the way. I always wonder, why don't you all feel it inside you? Tumour, I mean. It is right in the center of your brain, as big, as an tennis ball, and you..."  
  
He grabbed her by the arm.  
  
"What the fuck are you talking about? I have some problems with my sight after the injury I got playing basketball, so the doctor Martin sent me here for diagnostic study..."  
  
"Yes, continue to listen to doctor Martin, Mr. Lomonica. He will put you in the coffin in nice black tuxedo, with the candle in your hands, and will keep telling you, that this is your new, more comfortable bed to sleep in..." she smiled again, taking his fingers off her hand.  
  
"... forever. All the procedures you have here is the part of intense chemotherapy program. Chemistry is bad. Chemistry is radiation, and radiation kills. It can slow down the process, but the price of it is too high. You will start to loose your hair -- terrific sight -- you will brush your hair, leaving the whole locks on the hairbrush. Then, you won't be able to eat anything without you being throwing out. Day after day you will turn into walking skeleton. And here goes my favorite part: your brain will stop belong to you. You'll forget everybody, everything, living in the world of hallucinations... They are sometimes brighter than reality. We had one guy here, who saw the alien with a knife, he got so scared, that his heart exploded. Literally. But you still have a choice, Mr. Lomonica".  
  
The patient was trembling and nestling so close to the wall like he was going to go through it. In a less than five minutes the young and healthy man turned into pale dying shadow.  
  
"What... way?" he choked out.  
  
"That way", Vanessa pointed to the window. "This is no a medical center, this is just a hospital, but some people prefer to call it "the hospital of condemned men".  
  
He stood up and made his way to the trembling curtain on shaking legs, grabbing the window sill to prevent himself from falling. From here, the cozy room on 23d floor, people became small moving dots.  
  
Vanessa was circling him like a cat, placing her palms on his shoulders.  
  
"Time after time we hear screams in the night, in a daytime -- doesn't matter. Not really screams -- premortal rhonchuses, they could be loud enough to hear, though. People usually die immediately after they step out the windows, realizing, that this may be the first time in their lives, when they can't really take a step back, changing their minds. Some of them die from fear, too. And premortal rhonchus is really just the amount of air, that you had in your lunges before the brain died, that is braking free... People here complain, that life hadn't left them choice, which is wrong, because the choice always exists: a month of hidden tears and killing pain or one single step. Our Creator doesn't like suicides, but I highly doubt, that he knows himself, what cancer is. The choice -- here is the thing, that differ a man from an animal. And the choice is yours, Mr. Lomonica."  
  
"Who the hell are you?" he whispered.  
  
"Me?" Vanessa looked down onto her pocket, where her name was printed. "Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle, your nurse" she read before disappearing behind the door.  
  
She was collecting her stuff from the table to go home after such a tough working day, when Christina, one of the newest nurses, run into the room, crying, trying to say something and pointing in the direction of the room number 290. Mr. Lomonica jumped, making his choice.  
  
"Another one bites the dust", Copycat sang quietly, before leaving the room.  
  
Kind nuns didn't caught the moment, when exactly something went wrong in the head of Vanessa. She wasn't the first left child and she wasn't the first, who was freaked. They had a nice boy, who was born without skin at all, and was screaming hysterically, because his mother wrapped him up in the blanket, creating the unbearable pain from the contact of the fabric and unprotected by skin flesh. But he grew up, even had an operation of skin transplantation couple of years ago, becoming a successful lawyer. They had children without legs or arms, but prosthesis can make miracles nowadays.  
  
Vanessa was a white crow among the children in the shelter. Many of them hated her, because she didn't really had problems. She had two legs, two arms, the could see, hear, and talk, her brain worked perfectly. Every morning started with the reminder, that she didn't really belong here. But she was a freak for the people outside the church, too. Kind nuns fed her and dressed her, taught her to love people and live among them, but they never took a look inside the girl. They never saw monsters, that pain and loneliness created for the company. She grew up, and they grew up with her, being her only real friends, the only creatures, who cared about her (of course, they did -- they couldn't exist without her).  
  
Vanessa took a shower and stepped inside her small bedroom, looking in the mirror intensively. All the people she met in her life taught her only one thing: she was bad and wrong, God had made mistake, creating her. And one day she decided that God sent her here to find and correct His other mistakes: delete freaks and worthless creatures from the face of Earth. Vanessa, who called herself Copycat, killed seventeen people in the hospital, she worked in. She chose the job of nurse, because there are many worthless creatures in hospitals: dying patients, who will die anyway -- sooner or later -- and who just spoil the nerves of the doctors and their families, were perfect candidates to start her mission with.  
  
Only God knows, how many people she could kill, if... If she listened more to her sick minds, not demons.  
  
She was preparing to go to bed to start a new day tomorrow, when one of the demons whispered: "Razor".  
  
"What?" she asked, frightened.  
  
She was afraid of them, all of them had faces and voices of the children from the shelter. Even defective children can be cruel, they can be even crueler, than normal ones, in their limited world.  
  
"Razor you shaved your nice blue legs with. Take it".  
  
Moving like a robot, she took the shiny little blade in her fingers.  
  
"Beautiful", the demon said. "Now sit, let me say you something".  
  
He said her mission was over. He said it could be longer, much longer, but he just saw the razor and made a decision. Umm, God made a decision that it was time for her to stop and go, because He is pleased and that young bitch Marla, who works on the same floor with her, started to suspect something after she showed the choice to Ms. Gracen two weeks ago. The decease of Ms. Gracen could be cured, but she, Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle, decided, that the complicated process would take to much efforts and medicaments, so she showed her another way, the simpler way.  
  
"He decided, that it is time to choose another candidate, since you are a... FREAK!!!"  
  
Vanessa screamed, bringing her fingers to her temples, trying to shut the voice up, although she knew well, that the voice never listened to her.  
  
"He thinks so, too?" she whispered, blinded by tears.  
  
"Of course, He does, darling. You should say thank you to your nice momma, who gave a birth to you, knowing damn well, that you will never be the normal person. You didn't ask Him to give you the life, right. It was she, who made decision, it was she, who damned you, giving the birth to you."  
  
"I hate her..."  
  
"Right. But let God judge. Now do what you should do."  
  
The quick shadow of doubt appeared on Copycat's face. She couldn't be the only person in this world with such a strange gift, could she? And if so, maybe wasn't she so wrong?  
  
"WE ARE YOUR ONLY FRIENDS!!!" demon screamed, and the choir of other voices supported him. "We never left you. Never in your life. Now do what your friends say tell you."  
  
She slowly brought her arm, her disgusting blue hand closer to her face, studying convex veins attentively. Human body is a machine, just cut the wire, and it will stop functioning forever. She met her empty white gaze in the mirror and whispered: "I hate you whoever you are. I hate you for giving to me your destiny. Not mine," she took the blade in her shaking fingers, holding firmly.  
  
"Not mine.", she repeated, cutting the wire.  
  
CHAPTER 6.  
  
"I used to know her father", I lied automatically.  
  
The woman at the registration desk studied me attentively for a moment, and I acted just perfectly, hiding my gaze like I was feeling very uncomfortable. I never tried, but I guess, it IS damn uncomfortable to visit the daughter of your former lover, since you are the last person, who knows about her existence here. Thank God, Eric never was my lover, but the legend is perfect. I should try to write some novel sometimes.  
  
"He died?"  
  
"Yes, two years ago. I found the picture in his stuff accidentally, and decided, that idea is not that bad. But you have to understand, I have a family, and..."  
  
"Yes. It is a brave thing you did anyway. And her father... Such a bastard, if you excuse me, she was calling him every rainy night for two years, but than her brain broke. It is a good thing you came, but she has a "three days" memory, as our doctor says, so..."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Her brain refreshes the data every three days. Her memory will be virgin clean on Thursday, so she will need to learn, how her name is, once again..."  
  
"How did it happen?"  
  
She stood up and I followed her through the long corridor with green walls.  
  
"Shock. She couldn't take the betrayal of her own father, so this is kinda protection her brain is using to free the heart from pain. I would let you to go to the garden, but Wanda stopped to walk about three years ago. I hope, an hour is enough for you."  
  
"Yes. Thank you."  
  
In the first moments, when the door had just opened, I wasn't sure if I wanted to step inside. But then I saw the top of her head, turned to the open window, and made my first step. And I really had candies and flowers with me.  
  
"Hey Wanda", I said, approaching her bed.  
  
Oh my, she was young. 23-25 years old, I guess, and so pretty, so pretty...  
  
"Hey", she answered with the voice of the creature form another planet or even world, so distant and barely alive, but full of hope.  
  
"I came to visit you", I added, putting the box and the bouquet on the bedside table.  
  
"Visits -- this is good", she replied. "You should come closer, sit on my bed and cuddle me. That is what people do, when they come to visit me".  
  
"And do they come often?"  
  
Oh my, she was looking at me with Magneto's eyes. Only they were clean from anger, aggression and other special Eric's features.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
I sat on the bed and she leaned to me like a small scared and lost child. If fact, this is what she was right now and during all these years.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked.  
  
I looked into her cosmic eyes again, and suddenly realized, that no matter how far had I gone with killing, assaulting and just representing evil on this Earth, I can't tell her. After all she had been through, she hadn't had to know about the power, because power brings only pain and destruction, and loneliness. Nobody can make her be involved in the war of mutants and humanity, mutants and mutants, mutants and their nightmares. It is hard to live with the knowledge, that you are special. I made so many mistakes in my life, but I decided to fix this one. Maybe this means, that I'm getting old and sentimental, but I really don't give a damn.  
  
"Just a friend", I answered, as we watched the sunset together. "Just a friend".  
  
THE END. 


End file.
